New Delhi: Retail inflation edged higher to 0.71 per cent in November, rising from the record low of 0.25 per cent in October as food prices firmed up, according to government data released on Friday. Despite the uptick, Consumer Price Index-based inflation stayed under the Reserve Bank of India’s 4 per cent target for the tenth consecutive month. November also marked the second time in the current CPI series, which has data from 2014, that inflation fell below the 1 per cent mark.
Figures from the National Statistics Office showed food items continued to remain in deflation, but the rate narrowed to 3.91 per cent in November compared with 5.02 per cent in October. The NSO noted that the rise in both headline and food inflation during November 2025 was driven by higher prices of vegetables, eggs, meat and fish, spices, and fuel and light. Inflation in the fuel and light category increased to 2.32 per cent in November from 1.98 per cent in the previous month.
The extended period of subdued inflation has created space for monetary easing. The RBI has cut policy interest rates by a total of 1.25 percentage points in the current financial year. Earlier this month, the central bank lowered its inflation projection for the fiscal to 2 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent, noting that the economy is undergoing rapid disinflation. It had also reduced the key policy rate by 25 basis points to 5.25 per cent, describing the current phase as a “rare Goldilocks period” of strong growth and contained prices.
Last week, the RBI revised its FY26 GDP growth outlook upward to 7.3 per cent from 6.8 per cent. The Indian economy grew 8 per cent in the September quarter and 7.8 per cent in the June quarter.